How should I prepare my child for his/her first visit to the dentist?

Please find below some useful advice that will help you prepare your child for his/her first visit to the dentist:

• Explain to the child that he/she will go to the dentist (who will take care of his/her oral hygiene, in other words take care of him/her)
• Avoid as much as possible to transmit your own fear of dental treatments, as the case may be, to your children! Your concerns and stress have a huge impact on your child’s degree of cooperation.
• Avoid using words such as “injection” or “take out a tooth”.
• Do not tell the child that it is going to hurt or that it’s not going to hurt. On the contrary, stress the fact that the dentist is kind, gentle and very professional.

Try to be positive yourselves about the appointment with the dentist.